The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.

Greetings!

Today I want to discuss a very important event coming up. The Calgary Stampede!

Now, the Calgary Stampede has got to be one of my favourite events of the summer. It always lives up to its claim of being the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth. I have been to the Stampede almost every year of my life. It's always a blast.

A lot of the Stampede is based around tourism. This includes the shows, the concerts, and the rides. I think the best parts of the Stampede are, in fact, the agriculture related parts. One of the best parts is no longer there, though. This is the youth show. I loved the youth show being at the Stampede because it really gave me a chance to exhibit my animals to many people who, on a regular basis, are not exposed to this type of things. I always had people asking me to explain 4-H and things about cattle. I thought it was so cool to be able to enlighten people about the wonders that I deal with every day.

Another great thing about the Stampede is the rodeo. Many people, however, feel that rodeo is considered cruelty to the animals involved. I don't believe this. Those people are entitled to their opinions, but I feel that rodeo is a good natured sport. The animals are not harmed and are well taken care of. There are many worse places they could be. I think rodeo is fascinating because it does take a lot of skill to be able to compete in the fashion that these people do. It takes disipline, time, and patience to be able to be as good as they are. I hope to be in the Calgary Stampede one day. First, I'd like to be the Rodeo Queen of the Stampede and then possibly barrel race in it.

Well I enjoyed telling you about an event that is very important to me. I have yet another parade and rodeo tomorrow so I will keep you posted on the happenings.

~Miranda~

I want to be a princess when I grow up.

Hello! Wow it's been a while since I last posted! I've been super busy, though, so there is a lot to tell!

First off, last weekend was the rodeo. The Pete Knight Days Rodeo, to be exact. This is kind of important seeing as this is the rodeo I'm representing in the first place.

Friday night was the crowning. We brought out our horses and rode in the Grand Entry. My horse has never done this before, so she was a little nervous. She was fine with the flag going by, although she didn't stand still and tried to run. A lot. After that we chased calves after the guys had roped them, and Oakie was perfectly fine. At intermission, we had our crowning. It was so intense because me and the other girl were so close in the running. We decided we should just be co-queens! Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. So she ended up winning queen and I got princess. I'm actually perfectly fine with not winning queen because I realized that every little girl, at some point in her life, has said "I want to be a princess when I grow up." Well now I am one, so it's pretty cool.

On Saturday, we had the parade. My horse was really freaked out because so much was going on at the same time. There was noise and motion all around her and it was a lot to take in. Fortunately for me, she was fine during the actual parade. After that, we had to go in the Grand Entry, again. Oakie did not take well to that. I think it was mostly because it was about to rain, there was a lot of wind, and the flag kept coming too close to her, but she freaked! She reared up and almost started running and bucking, but some one came and held on to her for me. After that happened, I really didn't want to run around and back out, so we just walked her out. It was a good thing that she was still being held because when the rest of the horses came running out past her she completely flipped and she reared up so far that I thought she was going to fall backwards. This kind of made me nervous, so we didn't chase the calves after that. Emily, the queen, worked Oakie a little bit and made sure that she was fine. Oakie was great for Emily so we decided to call it a day. We loaded up the horses and spent some time just talking to people. Then I took my horse home and unpacked everything. I was so tired!

Another thing that has been going on lately is my calves. Summer Synergy is coming up pretty soon, so my brother and I have been getting our calves in the barn almost every day. We chase them in, put halters on them, tie them up, spray them with the hose, put a fan on them, and then feed them. This has quite a few affects. Catching them and tying them up helps to halter break them and calm them down. It will allow us to be able to lead them a lot easier and help keep them calm when they are tied in their stalls. Plus it keeps them away from their mothers, which helps because, at Synergy, they won't be with their mothers most of the day. By soaking them and putting the fan on them, it helps them to grow hair. This makes fitting a whole lot easier! The food is just to let them know that they get a treat for coming into the barn.

But that's it for now. I have yet another rodeo coming up this weekend so I will definitely post again after that sometime.

~Miranda~

There's only one way to never fall off your horse.

Hello people of the Internet! Some very interesting things have happened this past week and I shall be informing you of them.

First off, last Monday I had my riding test. I got all prettied up and took my horse over to the place where the test was and I warmed her up. The first thing we did was ride on the rail (circle around the arena close to the wall) and got told commands. We would have to carry out these commands as fast and accurate as we could. It was basically things like: walk, jog, lope, stop, turn around, and such. Oakie doesn't have a lot of control, so this was fairly difficult. After that, we dismounted and mounted our horses. The judges asked us a few questions, then it was on to the patterns! We had been practicing these patterns for weeks, so Oakie did really well on it. The only thing she did wrong was picking up the incorrect lead on one of the patterns. Fortunately, I discovered this right away, brought her down, and brought her back up on the correct lead. After that, the judges talked for a while and that was the end of that. I think I did fairly decent on the riding test, despite a couple of mistakes.

On Thursday night, we had our next test. Our written test. After the test we were supposed to walk around the farmers market, so my mother took me to someones house so I could get my hair and make up done, perfectly. Finally, it was time for our test. It was so hard! I now get what my dad means when he says that we are cow people with horses, not horse people. The test had some questions about horse parts and Pete Knight, the legendary bronc rider, on it. Those were multiple choice and fairly easy. The hard part was labelling the parts of the hoof, saddle, bridal, and horse. I was so lost! After our test, we went and walked around the farmers market and talked to people. It was pretty fun, although after a while it got a little boring.

Friday night I was preparing for my parade the next day. I decided to take my horse for one last ride before the parade and we went to get the calves in from the field. My brother saddled up his horse and came with me, his horse's baby following. It was going pretty good, until my brother had to go get a calf and a cow cut away. I went after the cow and picked up a jog. Oakie decided she'd rather run, then slow down to a jog really fast so I'd lose my balance. Then she decided she'd buck, sending me flying. I hit the ground so fast, and it hurt so much. My brother then went and got the quad so he could bring me back to the barn because I couldn't even put weight on my leg. J.T. got all the cows in, and both of our horses. There's the old rule that says when you fall off your horse, always get back on. At the time I couldn't even put weight on my leg without almost collapsing, so there was no way I'd be able to ride. Instead, I asked J.T. if he could get on for me. He did and Oakie was fine. Since I had a parade the next day, I decided to just sleep off the pain.

Saturday came around and my leg hurt more than ever. It was about 5:30 in the morning when I got up and I was super tired. My mother said that I had to ride my horse before I went, no matter how much it hurt. After getting dressed and curling my hair, I went out. I needed help putting on my saddle, though, because I couldn't lift it high enough to put it on. When I went to get on, it hurt so much! I got on myself, anyways. We went to the parade two hours early, and the parade only took about 30 minutes It was a lot of fun, though, because we got to put glitter and ribbon and stuff all over our horses! They looked so good! After that we went home and I finally got to relax.

So much stuff has happened and it's all been so fun! My towns rodeo, where I get crowned, is coming up this weekend and so after that there will be a lot to talk about! And there is only one way to never fall off your horse. That's to never get on in the first place. Until next time.

~Miranda~

This is the life

Hello people! Boy have I ever been busy lately!

Of course, as you know from my last post, just last weekend was 4-H On Parade. The entire weekend was non stop work and fun. All weekend there were shows. I came in last with my steer and my heifer but I came in third with my cow calf. I sold my steer, who ended up weighing 1187, for about $2.25/lb so I'm not too sad. Over the weekend there were a ton of little kids running around and they always wanted to touch the cattle. We tought them about animal safety and where to stand to pet the animal. This included telling them why not to stand by the back legs of cattle. I also saw a lot of my friends there who I haven't seen in a long time so overall it was a pretty enjoyable weekend.

So today I took my horse to my friend/instructors house out by Carstairs. I like to expose my horse to new things on a regular basis because when she rides in rodeos and parades, nothing will be too big of a surprise. Today we took our horses out into the field and rode around for a bit. Oakie spooked at a duck, but that was about it. My parents thought it would also be a good idea to make sure her saddle was fitted properly, seeing as my friend's parents own a saddle store. When they brought out a tape measure and tried to measure her, she flipped. Oakie reared up and ran away. We got her all calmed down a couple minutes later, and decided to try her with a new saddle anyways. This all made me a little nervous to take her on the next part of our journey.

The next thing we did was take our horses and ride into town. My horse was a little scared at first because she'd never ridden beside a highway in a ditch before. And certainly never around moving traffic. After a few minutes, she calmed down. She was perfectly fine riding through the streets and around the town and was fine with the barking dogs and trains. When we went over the railroad tracks, she didn't even blink an eye. After riding all around town, we rode to the rodeo grounds.

The rodeo grounds had a much bigger arena than the one I have a home so it took me a bit to get used to it. Before I knew it we were flying around the arena because it's always funner to go faster when there's more room. I practiced my riding pattern a couple times there and after about 2 or 3 times I got it almost perfect. I was so excited because Oakie picked up both of the correct leads on the first time and even stopped when I wanted her to. I was super impressed. After that we stopped doing the pattern because Oakie hates it and would just get worse from there. It's always better to end on a good note, anyways.

The last thing we did before leaving the rodeo grounds was work with barrels. Barrel racing has always been a big dream of mine, but I've never had the time or discipline to be able to get into it. We started by just walking around the barrels because this teaches the horse the path she needs to take. I also learned that when you go up to a barrel at a walking pace, you need to stop just before it because this teaches the horse she needs to slow down when she goes around the barrel. Of course it is a lot more complicated than this but it's a good start. I then jogged the path and when doing this you have to walk around the barrels. Something else I learned was that for every one time you run the barrels, you should walk it at least 10 times. This is important because it teaches the horse discipline and the proper way to do it. I had so much fun doing all of it! This really is the life.

After we rode back, \we took a look at the saddle and a couple new bridals. I ended up buying the saddle because it fit Oakie so much better and fit me a lot better too. I also ended up borrowing my friends bridal because it is a lot showier and shinier than mine.

That's all that's really new for now but this week I have a riding test and written test for rodeo and next weekend I have my first parade so I will update you as events happen. Also, there will be pictures to come so watch for them!

~Miranda~

How to ride.. My way!

Hello people of the internet! I know I haven't blogged in a few days and I'm deeply sorry but there's just been so much going on! And that means a lot to share!!

First off I want to talk about last Wednesday. It was such a big day for me because I had an interview. Not just any interview, either. It was for my rodeo royalty competition. The girl I'm competing against and I went down to the rodeo grounds, all dressed up, and went in the building one at a time. When I was in there, all they asked me to do was tell them a litte bit about myself. After I talked about myself, they asked me questions that were mostly related to me. The hardest question they asked was "What would you say to someone from PETA (People for Ethical Treatement of Animals) who tells you that rodeo is competely wrong?" It is such a hard question because I've grown up loving rodeo. It's all I know and it was hard to consider that someone else is so against something I love. I started off with "I'd say that they are entitled to their opinion, but I don't believe rodeo is wrong. Our horses get taken care of so well and the cattle are only used a couple times. They don't get beaten or starved and this is a really good place for them compared to other places they could be." I went into a little more detail but I really didn't know what else to say.

Another thing I want to talk about is what we did this weekend. We vaccinated all our calves. We only have 19, but we also did my grandparents, who have about 30 or so. It took a really long time. Basically, all we do is put them in the chute, give them a couple of needles, and possibly tattoo (and in one case tag) them. We already tattooed some of them, so we didn't have to do all of them. Mostly all I did was chase the calves in and fill up the needles with the medicine.With tattooing, we put tattoo ink in their ear, and then we take our tattoo gun and clamp their ear. What it does is put holes in their ear, but not all the way through it, so we tell the calves apart in case they lose their eartags. The other reason they have tattoos is for registration purposes. At any cattle show you go to, someone will check the tattoo, just to make sure it's the animal that you claim it is. This is very affective because the tattoo will always be there. We also don't brand our animals because they are purebred and my dad doesn't think it looks very good so the tattoo could help us to identify them if they ever got lost.

Filling up shots.







Ok next thing. 4-H On Parade is coming up next weekend! It's the largest youth 4-H event in Canada. I love it so much because I get to see so many of my 4-H friends, and not to mention show off my projects. It's always so much fun!!
We move in on Thursday afternoon. What we do is set up our stall by basically putting up a bunch of decorations and putting a lot of shavings down where the animals are going. Then the female projects move in that night.
On Friday there is the female show. What we do is spend the whole morning fitting animals, and helping everyone else. The steers also move in on Friday. That night there is a multi-judging. All you do is go and judge animals. You place them according to what you think is best and on the information that the actual judge gives you. Then you write down your order and orally give your reasons. The person who is closest to the actual order and gives the best reasons wins that catagory. We judge beef heifers, sheep, dairy cows, horses, and usually something like gloves or atvs. Sometimes I do well and other years I don't, but it's still fun.
On Saturday, we have the steer show. It is probably the most stressful day because every single person in our club has a steer so we often have to help out the younger members and then do our own steer. It's a very long and tiring day and I usually never win. That night they always do something fun. This year I think they have some version of tug of war.
Sunday is the last day. We have team grooming that morning. It's where three people take someones steer and they fit it. It's a competition against other clubs and I'm on the team this year. Hopefully we do well! That afternoon is the steer sale, which is always the hardest part especially for new members. It's sad when you spend a whole year getting close to a steer and raising it and then you have to sell it. After the sale we take down our stall and go home.
I look forward to this weekend every year because, even though it's stressful and tiring, it's always so much fun and worth the wait! So if you get a chance, check it out!!

I know my post has been fairly long today but this is the last thing, I promise! Plus I kind of have to write about this, seeing as it's the title of this post. Riding. I've been riding so much lately just because I'm training my horse to listen to the commands I give her, verbal or not, so she'll listen to me when I need her to this summer. I've been working on patterns, which is basically an outlined path someone gives me to ride with different actions in it like jogging, loping, stopping, turning, etc., and in one I was working on I had to lope in a circle. When a horse lopes, which is like running in a 1,2,3 rhythym, they have one foot going farther than the other and this is called a lead. If the right foot goes farther, for example, it's a right lead. The proper, and more comfortable, way to do this is to have the foot on the inside going farther. Especially when going in a circle. So I was doing this pattern and Oakie wouldn't pick up the proper lead at first. She'd pick up the wrong lead and then switch half way through the circle. My instructor thought this was slightly weird that Oakie switched leads while loping, so we did an experiment. What I did was ride a figure-8, one circle going one way, then, on the other side of the arena, go into a circle the other way. When you do this you have to switch leads between the circles. Usually to do this you have to bring your horse down to a jog then back up to a lope, with the other lead. Our experiment was to try to get my horse to switch leads without slowing down. This is a fairly advanced thing to do that many barrell racing horse do, called a flying lead change. After a couple times, Oakie got it. I was so excited!! This makes life so much easier because my horse does not like to slow down.

We also started training our new colt this week. We had a halter on him and just walked him around while my brother saddled up his mom and took her riding for the first time in quite a while. My brother and I played tic tac toe on our horses, which is easier than it sounds and it's really good for teaching horses control. When we wanted an X, all we did was walk our horse back and forth until a line was made and then made another line that crossed it. To make an O, all I had to do was make my horse do a turn on the honches, which is basically where she only moves her back feet around and her front feet stay in one place. Another thing my brother and I did, was play tag. It was so much fn because we just ran around on our horses like crazy. Then we chased some calves around because I might have to do that at a rodeo this year. That was pretty easy and really fun. This is how I ride because it's fun and makes riding more interesting than the usual exercises.

I know that was a long post today but thanks for reading! That's about all that's going on right now but I'll let you guys know what else goes on.

~Miranda~

Wonders of the world.

There are a lot of wonders in this world. There's the grand canyon and the pyramids and that kind of stuff but it's so far away! My wonder of the world is something a little closer to home.

This is 4-H. Today I was walking down the hall at school with some of my friends from 4-H and it hit me. What if I never met these wonderful people? Truth be told, I probably wouldn't talk to them at all if I wasn't in 4-H with them. I took a couple minutes and thought about all the people from 4-H that I know and how many friends I've met. It's literally more than a hundred. It's scary to think that some of the most important people of my life wouldn't even know me if I made the decision to not try 4-H, 8 years ago. It seemed like such an insignificant choice back then but now I realize it could have changed my life. I <3 4-H!!

The other parts of 4-H I've really been thinking about lately are what it teaches me. I know you've probably heard it a billion times because I definitely have. 4-H teaches you leadership, team work, and, of course, public speaking. Now where I'm coming from is that it will help me in the future with things like getting a job. But the future isn't for a while so right now I think it's helping me with my rodeo royalty competition. I'm able to work with the others involved, take the lead and show what I know, and it had a public speaking event. 4-H has in fact taught me valuable skills that I am actually using.

4-H can help anyone on a daily basis, too. For example when you're doing group work in class. Someone needs to take charge and get everyone organized. Plus you have to work together. Don't you learn how to do that in 4-H? Or you have to give a presentation in front of your peers. Pretty sure you learn how to public speak in 4-H. And if you start a new job, start going to a new school (like I will be), or are just placed in a situation where you don't know anyone, you can walk up and start associating with people. It's so easy to just start a conversation. 4-H helps you not be shy.

All in all I find 4-H very interesting, helpful, and overall, fun! So keep on 4-Hing! And if you aren't in 4-H, definitely join! These are just my thoughts of the day but I will keep you posted.

~Miranda~

You get out what you put in.

Cattle showing season begins once again!

Saturday May 14, 2011 was my 4-H clubs Achievement Day. In preparations for this day, my brother and I had to wash and clip every single one of our projects the night before. In total it was 10 animals, plus my friend and her brother's steers, making it 12 animals. It took us seven and a half hours to do. Mostly because the majority of those animals are Charolais'. Silly white animals.

Saturday morning we had wash all the spots on them that got dirty over night. We got up pretty early and washed until about 10:30. Then we loaded up the animals and the equipment and headed to the show. As soon as we got there and unloaded everything, it was time to start fitting. Personally, I love fitting cattle. I don't know why but I find it pretty great. It might possibly have something to do with the fact that it's about the only thing I can control with my animal but either way I enjoy it.

I started with my purebred Charolais heifer, Wish. She doesn't have a lot of hair, especially on her tail head, so fitting her didn't take long. She ended up coming in second last, between two Herefords, but I got a participant ribbon! So I wasn't too upset about placing so low.

Me clipping my heifer.


Next I did my two-year old Charolais, Wisdom, and her purebred heifer calf, Theory. I didn't really do much to the cow because, well she's a cow. There's not a lot to do on her. I took a long time to fit Theory, though. My hard work paid off because, surprisingly, they got first in the class! They also won me Grand Champion Female. It made me so proud!

Next up was my steer, Dunsparse. He was the easiest to do, but it also took me the longest. He was easy to fit because he's a black Angus X so you can't see most of the dust on him. It took me so long because I had to glue all of his legs and his tail head and I had quite a few things to clip. But, once again, my hard work paid off because he got second in his class. And then second out of all the senior steers. Unfortunately, he didn't place after that, but I completely agree with the judge's decision.

Me showing Dunsparse.







After all the hard work was done it was nice to sit down and feel so proud of the work I did to get what I got. My dad always tells me you get out what you put in and I guess it's true. That's about all for now but I'll keep you updated.

~Miranda~